Fury 3

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Platforms:

PC

Publisher:

Microsoft Corporation

Developer:

Terminal Reality

Genres:

3D Shooter / First-Person Shooter

Release Date:

1995

Game Modes:

Singleplayer

Fury3 is Microsoft’s gaming product marketed to take advantage of Windows 95 in a fast-paced adrenaline-pumping space arena. It’s mainly a clone of Terminal Velocity and Descent. The engine used is actually the same one from Terminal Velocity, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself hit by a sense of deja vu. The gameplay as well as terrain and target types are quite similar to Terminal Reality, while the tunnel shooting sequences will superficially remind you of Descent.

The graphics and sound are almost identical to Terminal Reality in early stages, but Fury3 has an enormous number of different enemies and ground targets. With eight worlds that include everything from barren asteroids to underwater seascapes to ancient Egyptian deserts, the terrain, enemies, and background music in each world are quite distinctive. Knowing that different ships, each with distinctive weapons, will face you in the next world is incentive to press on. The player can fly close to the floor level or pop above the cloud cover to enjoy the stars and avoid a swarm of bad guys.

The interface is the typical first-person perspective with six degrees of freedom. The viewpoint can be from inside the craft with or without your cockpit showing or an out-of-spacecraft view. The easiest control was obtained via a multi-button joystick and some minor keyboard commands. From an in-cockpit vantage point your instrument panel provides all the information you need to navigate through each level. Your chosen weapon, current objective, throttle speed, shields, and active radar fill your slim cockpit panel. The radar gives directional information and hostile locators that let you know where the enemy lurks and whether they are above or below you. The goal of each level is to destroy various targets and then find the escape teleporter.

By blasting enemies and objects, you will be rewarded with a nice amount of power-ups, including new weapons (your base laser has infinite ammunition, all other weapons don’t), a shield power-up and a turbo mode that you can use to escape tricky situations or navigate some of the more difficult, trap-laden tunnel sections. These tunnels have their own defenses ranging from moving doors, to rotating cylinders, and finally, each level’s “boss”. Destroying them requires some skill and technique, but after you’ve killed one, they all fall from the same basic strategy.

Overall, Fury3 is a great space-oriented 3D shooter. It runs like a dream on Windows 95/98/XP, and will offer a nice alternative for players who couldn’t run Terminal Velocity. If you’ve enjoyed such games and have a decent joystick, then feel free to give this arcade game a spin.